Did This Senator Just Commit the Most Brazen Flip-Flop Ever?

May 9, 2017

by Jon Schweppe

This is Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). According to Axios, the pro-Planned Parenthood picture on the right was taken less than a month ago. The anti-Planned Parenthood picture on the left? That was taken last week.

Manchin is a Democratic politician in a deep red state trying to, as Axios delicately puts it, “walk a tightrope” on abortion — i.e. he talks pro-life at home and votes pro-abortion in Washington, D.C.

Manchin previously identified as pro-life, and he even voted to defund Planned Parenthood in 2015. But as Frank Cannon wrote for The National Pulse on Monday, Democratic Party leadership is now demanding complete uniformity on the abortion issue. Manchin, who is up for re-election in 2018, was likely told to fall in line or else.

We saw examples of the new, improved pro-abortion Manchin recently when he opposed allowing states to make their own choices on Planned Parenthood funding. (That bill ultimately passed the Senate 50-50 with Vice President Pence breaking the tie.) He has also promised to vote against the American Health Care Act, which would defund Planned Parenthood for a year and shift that funding to Community Health Centers.

Flip-flops are nothing new in politics. They happen all the time. Dog bites man. But this side-by-side display of blatant duplicity is in a league of its own.

Apparently Joe Manchin thinks he can pal around with Planned Parenthood during the week in Washington, D.C. and pretend to be pro-life on the weekend back home in West Virginia and no one will know better of it. Whoever ends up running against Manchin (paging Patrick Morissey) should have a field day with this.